Snnnnnththththththhth! Smell that? It’s grillin’ season. And Graveyard BBQ done brung the lighter fluid. (And, of course, the booze. Lots of booze.) Songs like “Meat Yer Enemy,” “BBQ Girl,” and “By the Grace of the Grill” give you a hint where their bearded heads are at: and if it doesn't, well, this will. But these Waltham wyldemen aren’t just up for a bit of back-patio carnivorousness. No, their songs — drunk-n-roll skeeze-metal anthems in the grand tradition of Zodiac Mindwarp and Buckcherry — are infernally next-level: They’re less about sizzling grills than the righteous causticity of that hell below where we’re all gonna go. Having swigged moonshine with hellhounds in a terraplane at the crossroads, the BBQ dudes are bringing their debauched diablerie nationwide. After a kick-off show tonight at Bill's Bar, Howlin' Jack Boone, Bud Black, Billy Z. Bub, Brownbag Johnson, and new rhythm guitarist Higgins pile into their brand new big ol’ tour bus — we’re assuming it’s equipped with Guitar Hero — and hit the road that lies ahead on a 22-city tour, blasting the songs from Greatest Hits, Volumes I and II in Nashville, Reno, Hell Paso, and all points in between.

This means, to their consternation and ours, that they won't be in town for the first annual Phoenix/FNX “Cinco de Mustache” fiesta this Monday at Jose McIntyre’s in Boston. Which is a shame not only because the guys in Graveyard BBQ enjoy a drink now and then, and also have some truly righteous whiskers, but furthermore because we'd heretofore decided that the BBQ's fantasmarific "Ride The 'Stache" would be our official Cinco de Mustache anthem. Download that bitch right here, show it to us on your iPod at the door, and we'll paste a free mustache on your face and direct you to some tequila.

Just after April Fools' Day, the Boston Phoenix implemented a mandatory-mustache policy in its Kenmore Square offices. Several weeks later, we invited noted Mustachiologists TD Sidell (of Big Digits fame) and Chris Braiotta to survey the damage. In the above video, TD and Braiotta -- regulars at Eugene Mirman's monthly Union Square Round Table -- rate the Phoenix mustaches thus far. Feel free to show us up by uploading your own. And mark your calendars for Boston's first annual CINCO DE MUSTACHE party, coming May 5 to the only Irish-Mexican joint that would have us. Here's an offer you probably haven't heard before: free mustaches at the door for the ladies!

Ryan Stewart wasn't sure about his mustache at first. It was thin. It was patchy. And he worried that people might think he was making some sort statement, some sort of ironic statement.

Time passed. The mustache grew. It changed. Ryan changed. "I came to realize something," he says.

Ryan had let other hair on his face grow while he cultivated his mustache. This was a mistake. "It was a skeezy, ratty goatee," he says. "It was my conclusion that this look was worse than the mustache alone. The goatee is not a good look on anybody." So Ryan shaved his extraneous growth. He looked in the mirror. He liked what he saw. "I thought it fit with the long hair. It fit the look." He didn't look like a "dirtball criminal" anymore. No, now he looked more like a member of a Led Zeppelin cover band.

"I call it Stockholm Syndrom of the face," he says about his mustache. "The mustache is my captor. And I'm sympathizing with it."

You heard it there first. At the dawn of 2006, the Seattle Times ran an article, headline booming "Mustache backlash just keeps on growing." The article details how we associate mustaches with villains, not heroes, how the days of a "mouth-mane" signaling virility were long gone, that it had become not only unfashionable, but a source of humiliation and ridicule, a style choice of cops and perverts.

Midway through, the author asks the question. We can all agree that certain trends go in and out of style, he suggests, grooming habits included. Doesn't that augur well for the mustache? Isn't it time the stash made it's comeback?

The answer, in 2006, was no. A timeline is presented. It started dying in the 50s; the hippie beard took its place in the 60s; chops in the 70s; and in the 90s, "the goatee ascended to the top of the facial-hair food chain." And the author offers multiple quotes from stylists and trendwatchers, in a chorus of RIPs to the mustache. "It was great in it's heyday," says one Michelle Volpe, of New York, "but it's just not fashionable anymore. Let it die."

Our hatred for Eric Byrnes began on a Saturday afternoon in 2003 when the Oakland A's were playing the Boston Red Sox in the third game of the American League Division Series. Byrnes, a blonde bad-tempered sore-losing prettyboy crybaby, rounded homeplate, shoving trunk-thighed Varitek out of the way. But lo! He didn't tag homeplate! Instead of punching his lights out, instead of stomping the odious little monster, Varitek retrieved the ball, and tagged Byrnes out. So controlled. So civil. The perfect revenge.

Anyway, Byrnes, now playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks, started growing a mustache because, as everyone knows, wispy upper lip hair makes you play better baseball. Quoth Byrnesy: "I knew if I could hit in 10 straight, just something to get me going at the beginning of the year, get a little visible mustache growing, that would be great."

Well, this is it. We're still trying to corral a few nancies to get their pictures took, but the mustache race is officially on -- and the Sandbox dudes are on board (click below to listen to the kickoff). Click here to check out the "control" images -- as you can see, there ain't much in the way of 'stash yet.

And so it begins. As inspiration to our Phoenix brethren --- and to all of you staying up late to grow your mustaches at home --- we'll be posting superaltive (and molestery and fake and funny) mustaches from around the world herein. Some examples (this one included) are heroic. Some will be downright frightening.

It began, as most bad ideas do, while stumbling blindly across teh internets. Somehow we came across this video, in which fans of an as-yet-not-quite-famous emo band don fake facial hair for what we assumed was a fake holiday called "Cinco de Mustache." Much later, over many beers, a discussion of said video veered into a drunken challenge to the male staff of the Phoenix to grow mustaches for a month. Stupidly, the male staff somehow agreed. And now there are rules, sort of: the boys are growing 'stashes for exactly one month, beginning April 5 and ending, of course, on Cinco de Mustache (a not-completely-fake holiday, it turns out). We excluded staffers with pre-existing facial hair. We stipulated mustache-only growth -- no goatees, no full beards -- to encourage maximum embarassment and ridiculosity. And we made everyone promise to document the progress of his mustache on a daily basis.

If you are foolish enough to join us -- or if, like these people, you already have a mustache -- we encourage you to upload your cookie duster to our gallery (you can also submit photos to our extra-fancy Boston mustache group on Flickr here). By doing so, you will be eligible to become the object of our fascination, ridicule, and honor by becoming our "Mustache of the Day." And everyone who submits will get first dibs at attending our first-annual Cinco de Mustache party (details coming soon in this space).

The growing . . . . has begun. The two jokers below jumped the gun, and we're punishing them by posting their photos early. We'll have the official starting-day photos of all the contestants tomorrow. And stay tuned to our sister station, 101.7 WFNX, where the Sandbox guys have shaved existing facial hair in order to play along on the radio.

We are Boston, and these are our mustaches. Join us May 5, 2008 -- that's Cinco de Mustache to you, chump -- at Jose Mac's in Faneuil Hall for Boston's first annual 'Stash Bash. Admission: one mustache. If you ain't wearing one, you ain't getting in. Fake mustaches will be available at the door for the ladies. It's first-come, first-serve, but you can wrangle a VIP spot by submitting your mustache photo to this page in one of two ways. Check the links below to upload your photos directly. Or if you've already got pictures of yourself on Flickr, submit them to our Boston Cinco de Mustache Group. You'll be in like Flynn.
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